Hello lovely people: the ninth (and last) of my occasional blogs from Chile – Argentina – Chile

It’s all about …. well pretty much more desert!

After our four fascinating days based in San Pedro de Atacama we hit the road again. First by a late afternoon/evening bus journey to Antofagasta (374 Ks, five and a half hours) and then, after an overnight stop, we collect a hire car – this one complete with number plates – and hit the mostly coastal road south.

Once again, this country – or at least this part of it – is big with a lot of nothing in it except mines, quarries, cement works and sparse settlements in shacks and pre-fab housing along the coast. Like the road trip in Argentina this area of Chile seems big and empty on a similar scale: the vistas are vast but the mountains slightly lower: looking at the Andes’ foothills, we have lost massive peaks and volcanoes. The skies remain superbly blue for the most part but the colours are far more muted: earth tones of the desert and little to no vegetation. After a while on the road we understand why most people we have met fly into or out of San Pedro de Atacama from points south . . .

Our route:

• Antofagasta 🛏️
• Bahia Inglese 🛏️ 🛏️ 🛏️
• Caldera
• Parque Provincial Pan de Azucar
• La Serena 🛏️ 🛏️ 🛏️
• Valle del Elqui
• Valparaiso 🛏️ 🛏️ 🛏️
• Viña del Mar (actually a short hop by train from Valparaiso)
• Santiago airport 🛏️

The maps below do not include the “side” trips at steps 3, 4, and 6 above and the basic route is still 1,410 Ks (881 miles) and covers a small, tiny, fraction of Chile – and is still further than Land’s End to John o’Groats which is 1,340 Ks (837 miles).

The roads are generally good and rarely very busy with the exception of heavy traffic, especially trucks, leaving both Antofagasta and when we joined the autopista out of Valparaiso. We are again blessed with good weather but it feels noticeably more autumnal with both cooler overcast mornings and cool evenings and nights as we travel south from Bahia Inglese.

Antofagasta is a big modern port and town, grown up a round the mining industry it supports. We are there only to pick up the hire car but the hotel looks across the bay and our morning view is of huge numbers of pelicans, cormorants and gulls swimming and fishing in the bay and turkey vultures looking on, including poolside.

Off the road to Bahia Inglese the countryside is scarred with evidence of current and former mining industries. The town itself, on the sea, is a local holiday spot and we arrive on the penultimate day of the season. It is very quiet by 8 o’clock on a Saturday evening and we use it as a base for two days exploring this area of coast: Caldera, a few miles north where we watch seals and sea lions frolic in the harbour waiting for the fishing boats to return. We are as interested as they are in the fish being unloaded and filleted and sold immediately to waiting locals. Some people take hold fish, others fillets, others all the heads and off-cuts, no doubt for excellent stocks and soups. We wish we had a good kitchen and bbq, we have rented a beach house for our three days stay, but it is disappointingly shabby and ill-equipped for fish cooking. Instead, we eat well at a restaurant recommended by one of the fishermen. Roberto is again the key to all our locally gleaned information. Alison M’s Spanish is good but the speed and local adaptation of the language by the Chileans is a challenge for her and well beyond our limited vocabulary.

The next day, retracing our steps even further north, we visit Parque Naçional Pan de Azucar. On a quiet Monday there are no tourist boats to take spotting Humboldt penguins on an off-shore island but we do a fabulous walk up a gently climbing hill to a mirador overlooking the coast, walking through cactus groves, this time Copiapoa rather than the Cardones seen in Argentina, all extremely photogenic.

The drive to La Serena gave us more of the same landscape. With the sun shining and immense blue skies it was far from desolate but we wonder what its like during the dark months of winter. We spend a day exploring la Serena – its a biggish town of approx. 55,000 people and has a lot of churches with architecturally interesting spires and bell towers. There is a pretty Japanese garden and the town has extended to the beach – we eat good fish two of our three nights. There is also a very good archaeological museum: fascinating ceramics from the indigenous Molle and Daguita peoples and one exhibit which chimes a personal chord with Andy: a Moai, a gift from the Easter Island community of Rapa Nui given to the city of La Serena in thanks for an inaugural flight made to the island in January 1951 in a Catalina. Andy’s father, seconded to the Dutch Air Force in WWII, was a crew member in a Catalina flying missions along the coast of South Africa to spot German submarines. The museum exhibit includes creaky film footage of the inaugural flight to Rapa Nui, the first time Andy has seen a Catalina flying.

On our second full day we explore the Elqui Valley – home to vineyards and the centre of pisco production. It is lush and verdant and a complete contrast to our journey south from Antofagasta. Lunch at a piscoria, a tour and tasting are taken. Before that we stopped at Vicuña, and visited the museum in the birthplace of Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1945 and of whom we previously were wholly unaware.

And then Valparaiso: once Chile’s biggest port, now apparently its third but still active with vesssels and derricks. The hill behind the town has become renowned for its street art, graffiti and its artistic and somewhat bohemian community. We stay in a hotel created from the home of Thomas Somerscales , a Yorkshireman who joined the Royal Navy and was invalided ashore at Valparaiso. He stayed, built a (grand) house, turned an enthusiasm for art, especially landscapes and naval painting, into a career and is considered a Chilean painter. We love and are energised by Valparaiso, its gritty and grimly; many bars an restaurants; fantastic 19th century elevators to ascend and descend the hills; there is a pervading smell of dope in certain areas; the historic architecture invokes for us both Victorian and Californian precededents. We take a three hour walking tour one afternoon, with a great guide, and it is fascinating.

We spend an afternoon at nearby Vina del Mar, much lauded by the guide books as a beach resort popular with those weekending from Santiago, we find it somewhat bland!

And just like that our adventure is nearly over. For us it closes with a bonus day in Santiago. Alison M and Roberto decide to fly back to Buenos Aires for their last five days so we travel to Santiago airport together and return the hire car. We drop our bags at the airport hotel we have booked for our last night, and bid a sad farewell to A & R as they check in for their flight to BA. We then take the bus into Santiago and have a great day walking and discovering new and now familiar bits of the city. The change in five weeks is huge: it is now full of people, everyone is back from their summer escape from the city; the universities are open and thronged with students; there is a buzz lacking before; the weather is still glorious and the colours in the parks are definitely autumnal. We have a late lunch at the restaurant we found on our second evening, which we loved and we are not disappointed.

The decision to stay at the airport hotel is a good one: modern, clean, comfortable and an oh so easy six minute walk to departures in the morning. Our 14 hour flight beckons, it will give us some time to process all we have seen and done. It has been a fabulous trip.

PS: the airport wifi was far too feeble to enable me to upload this, let alone the photographs, to my blog site so I am doing so two full days (and a bit) after reaching home. It means I can add the photos Andy took from the plane . . .

Until next time, wherever that may be from, adios amigos, thanks for reading
ALISON